Now, here are some common arguments against socialism. I do enjoy real debates about capitalism vs. socialism however the vast majority of people who blindly support capitalism often make poor, ignorant, misguided, and/or unintelligible arguments.

You cannot legislate the poor into prosperity by legislating the wealth of prosperity.

First of all, this question itself doesn't really make sense. The 'wealth of prosperity', I assume they mean the rich? Complete income equality is not the goal of socialism. That is communism, which is different from socialism. Now, relatively decreasing the greatly ever-growing distorted gap between the rich and the poor (not to complete equality) is a goal of socialism.

What one person receives without working for, another person must work without receiving.

Only when viewed linearly that argument seems valid. The truth is you did not build that school/university you attended so why should you be able to benefit from it? You did not build the roads that allowed you to travel from home to work. You and I worked for it, as members of a collective society, and only as a collective society were such great tasks affordable and constructed.

If you spend an entire day pointing out the things you receive benefits from without directly working for, there are possibly hundreds or thousands. So the argument I am trying to make here is everyone, even the rich, benefit from millions of things they did not work for. That you did not work for; That someone else did work for. The very core of this argument is not a strong one and in fact, could easily be flipped on your arguer.

When half the population starts to believe they don't need to work because the other half will work and when that half realizes that what they worked for will be given to the other half, a nation will fall apart.

An incredibly absurd argument, also one that does not consider an easy concept to understand. With socialism, the issue of time poverty would greatly diminish and with the workforce all doing their part society as a whole would greatly see improvements not only in social programs, infrastructure, and relative growth in standards of living but will have more time to grow as individuals in a free society.

Listen, all who disagree with what socialism offers, capitalism's solution to solving the growing homelessness/poverty issue is terrible. In fact, it is almost non-existent. A lot of homeless rely on the kindness of religious charities to feed and shelter them, but even they only can serve a minor percent of the homeless.

If you want the poor/homeless to "stop being lazy and get jobs" (which isn't the case) you need to enable them to get jobs. You can't get a decent job when you smell like garbage and interview in torn shirts and shoes. Derp.

Good day to all! Merry Saturday!

Joke may only be relevant to Americans. The current day American Republican Party can be seen as one of the most idiotic-delusional political parties in history.

« Every system is anti-philosophical, a system require an answer and imposes it, it doesn't search nor it tolerates questionning. » - Thomas de Koninck (My teacher & the one who inspired The Petit Prince to St-Exupéry)

Furthermore, I would suggest you to read Edgar Morin's "Sept savoirs nécessaires à l’éducation du futur", which does the distinction between rationalism, and rationalisation. The second, is the art to trying to rationalize everything around a system that might be logical, but has no other validity then it's intern logic.

lol i didn't mean you MikeBane, i was just poking fun because you used the qualifier "blindly", which narrows down your comparison to only the most ignorant and narrow-minded supporters of capitalism before you even make the claim that their arguments are ignorant and misguided

i understand what you were trying to say though, i was just being facetious

I enjoy a good political/economic debate, but that picture at the end was really just an unnecessarry shot, dude. I'm not saying I'm offended, but even the Republican party has a separation of church and state.

captitalism is the only safeguard for the minority. Socialism fail him as even if he is rich ,, socialism by the majority means an attack on his industry to cause the shift to equality thereby impoverishing him or his children.

Furthermore a socialist government will either take his business and redistribute it, create a law to destroy it, or sit back when its burned down.

Furthermore socialism creates an ambition-less society. In South Africa young unwed woman who has a child is paid a "dole" But the sadness is that this has become their aim in life , more children means more money, so they breed and never try to reach even the bottom of the ladder.

Therefore socialism is failure and creates an idiotic society, whilst capitalism is not winning but leaves the individual the tools to empower himself despite his wealth, status in life.

@Kraken: Communism you can make the argument of not having "incentive", however this isn't true either necessarily. Socialism there is still room for promotion, still room to improve your quality of life, and so forth. There is still a lot of incentive. A promotion doesn't necessarily need to be more pay, but more vacation time. You cannot put a price on living your private life and having more time for yourself or your family.

Capitalism creates more minorities by the decade, even in America were capitalism is on steroids we see the depletion of the middle class and the wider-growing gap between rich and poor. I cannot imagine in the third world the horrid examples of the factory worker getting less than one dollar a day for a full day's work while the capitalist CEO is eating well and living luxuriously compared to them.

Any moral person has to agree that when good people, innocent families, are starving while working their fingers to the bone and one man is doing as much work or possibly less is living incredibly more well-off than them. It's not right.

If the banks and auto industries weren't bailed out, the United States would have suffered another great depression. Social Security has recently been being dug into while our defense spending continues to rise. Impoverishing the proletariat and sending them off to die for the rich. We do not have a nationalized Central Bank, it is semi-part of the government but certainly not controlled.

Ask anyone, the socialist movement has achieved some justice in many national governments, but the system itself is staunchly capitalist.

Government intervention itself isn't necessarily socialism, Sweet. All socialism of course involves government intervention, but not all government intervention is socialism. The difference is important.

Not that I'm taking sides here. Just because it is not socialism doesn't mean it is good or bad (that's a whole other debate). It's just not socialism in the technical sense.

Stilpo I didn't say all State intervention was socialism.
I said that, bailing out failed businesses, subsidizing entire markets, central controlled economy, and Social Security are all clearly not capitalist behaviours. They are socialist behaviours.

Mike they haven't 'recently dug into social security'. The social security 'vault' has contained nothing but a giant IOU from the government since the Kennedy Administration.

The same Keynesian models that create these busts are being used to predict the depression it prevents.
It's like patting yourself on the back for driving someone to the hospital... after you shot them in the face.

Your central bank isn't a part of the government. It owns the government.

And there is no draft, those proletariat sent to die in foreign wars are all volunteers. They are doing it in the name of spreading democracy.